Smart? or Mykel Board's Post MRR Column no. 40

Mykel's

Post MRR Column no 40

or If you're so smart, how come you ain't rich?

There's more than one way to skin a cat. --Old saying

You start with the legs. Of course your knife has to be razor sharp... as pointy as a party hat. Slowly push the knifepoint into the rabbit skin... just at the ankle. A small stream of blood will trickle from the wound, but if the rabbit is properly inverted... hung from the feet... the drip will end quickly as the blood pools in the headside of the animal. Cut in a circle... mohel-like... around each ankle. It might be tempting to remove the feet for good luck, but that comes at the end.

From the cut ankle circles, slice a straight line down toward the rabbit-ass. Don't cut too deeply or muscle will stick to the skin. You're only interested in the skin itself. It's gonna be part of a coat, you know.

When you reach the tail, you have to cut through the tailbone. Be careful... a slip of the knife could pierce the bladder and the animal skin will be soaked with rabbit piss. From there.....

FLASH TO FACEBOOK: After the hoopla of Donny Trump choosing an “Alt-Right” chief of staff, I decided to check out what Alt-Right is. Seems like it's a nationalistic, pro-white, anti-PC, capitalist, somewhat libertarian group. I figure, there's got to be an ALT-LEFT someplace. That is an international, color-neutral, socialist, somewhat libertarian, anti-PC group. And sure enough... facebook connect me to ALT-LEFT. I join.

But instead of color-neutral, these guys are spreading the same pro-white stuff as ALT-RIGHT. They brag about the correlation of high salary and high IQ …. and how that shows your brains are in your DNA.

What's most interesting/weird are the constant references to socio-biology and relative racial IQs. There's a continuous debate... with footnotes... over whether colored folks are biologically dumber than whitefolks.

People argue with the methodology. They discuss whether a representative sample of each race was chosen. They talk about statistical misuse. They talk about the notorious BELL CURVE where scientists^® have proven^® that most white people are smarter than most colored or Hispanic people. It's all in the IQ tests.

Ok, let's investigate.

Like any other modern person, I ask the internet for an IQ test. (I score 137, by the way). First, the website tells me that the BBC says: A person's Intelligence Quotient (IQ) is, arguably, one of their most important characteristics. It is believed that you can predict a person's behavior more accurately from their IQ than from any other single piece of information about them."

It is believed? Who believes it?

And the test? What kind of questions do they ask?

PEACH is to HCAEP as 46251 is to:

     25641 26451 12654 51462 15264 

or Ralph likes 25 but not 24; he likes 400 but not 300; he likes 144 but not 145.

Which does he like: 10 50 124 200 1600 

or If you rearrange the letters "CIFAIPC" you would have the name of a(n):

City Animal Ocean River Country

And I'm thinking:

WHAT THE FUCK?

Do you want Ralph to get more from his boss... the country... your taxes... because he likes the number 25, but not 24? Do you think it's important to recognize HCAEP is PEACH backwards? How useful is that when there's a rabbit that needs skinning?

Who could possibly care about a bell-curve of people who can unscramble the word CIFAIPC? What does that mean for people whose first language is NOT English? Can you unscramble GCAHNI UT AMRED? And even if you can, how far with that get you when the tacos need to be made?

I suppose... based on these tests... Wall Street brokers, bankers, atomic scientists, and Hillary Clinton have high IQs... Do you want to give them any more value... any higher position... for that? Can you tell me one benefit of being smart?... in the IQ sense of the word.

Just like Think Outside The Box has become the most In-The-Box phrase in advertising... rewarding Being Smart is the Dumbest way to run a society. There is no social benefit in knowing what number Ralph likes.

There is no possible reason to value a high IQ. What good is it? How does giving more money to someone who can rearrange CIFAIPC make the world a better place to live in? I don't see it.

How did this happen? How did being smart (that is having a high IQ) become a valuable asset? It seems odd in a country that built its reputation on powerful fists and fast guns.... a place where the bad guy in every movie is the Mad Professor or the Criminal Genius. It seems even stranger when Ronnie Reagan, possibly the most popular president, built his image riding a horse and corralling cows-- not on publishing in Foreign Affairs magazine.

Here's my guess: White guys find themselves a minority in a place that they're used to occupying top-dog position. Affirmative action, sympathy, and a wave of leftist totalitarianism (trigger warnings, professor firings over speech issues, speakers prohibited from college campuses, the rise in segregationist safe spaces) have scared the white folks... made them circle the wagons... look for SOMETHING that proves they're better. Aaah, got it! IQ!!! And now, if we look at the DNA... we can find out it BELONGS TO US... BECAUSE WE'RE WHITE!

So the guys who make the IQ tests are the ones who will score high on the IQ tests. What a surprise. Listen guys, being smart (having a high IQ) is the most idiotic way to judge the value of a person. Empathy, compassion, tolerance, ability to cooperate for the common good... creativity maybe... these are much more important than IQ. Of course there is a correlation between high salary and high IQ. The guys paying the salaries are the same heartless scumbags who need MORE heartless scumbags to increase their profit. That's the name of the game. But it's not MY game and I don't care if IQ is biological or if it comes from eating bacon-wrapped asparagus.

Why should ANYONE care about the biology of IQ? If you want to do the research, fine with me. But the results are as useful as discovering the history of Gilyak. Politically, laws apply to everyone equally. IQ is not in the mix. People have different traits... maybe biological... maybe social... most probably a mix. Where those traits come from does not matter in society. Being smart^® is not important. In fact, it's useless, unless you want to steal from someone. There is no more reason to give any benefit to someone who can spell PEACH backwards, than there is to give a benefit to someone who can skin a rabbit without getting rabbit piss all over the fur. Probably less.

ENDNOTES: [You can contact me on facebook or by email at god@mykelboard.com. Through the post office: send those... er... private DVDs..or music or zines... or anything else (legal only!) to: Mykel Board, POB 137, New York, NY 10012-0003. If you like my writing, you can be notified when anything new is available by subscribing to the MYKEL'S READERS Yahoo group readmboard-subscribe@yahoogroups.com]

-->Alt-Alt Left Dept:  Because the Facebook version of Alt-Left is so race-fixated, I think it's time to start a new page... either a facebook page or a completely independent site. But I need some interest... and some contributors! If you have ideas... or would just like such a site to exist... let me know at: god@mykelboard.com.  Positive responses by ten people will signal a go ahead. 

-->I was Wrong Dept: Last blog I wrote: This blog will appear just before the 2016 presidential election... probably the most useless presidential election in American history. From the get-go, I predicted a Clinton victory...

       Whoops!
 

But all the other trustworthy^® media (NY TIMES, CNN, FOX) made the same mistake. So I don't feel so bad.

What pisses me off is the media's REACTION to Trump. Instead of saying We Were Wrong, they're saying I Told You So.... with ridiculous stories of a spate of “hate crimes” unfolding after Trump's election. Many of the stories are FALSE.

And the others? Are people being shot, stabbed, or run over because they're colored? Are there anti-Mexican mob attacks... like the peasants at the house of Dr. Frankenstein? NO! Almost all the “crimes” are GRAFITTI. That's it! Scribbling on a wall... that's a HATE CRIME!!!

Jeeee-zus! When did we learn about sticks and stones?

-->It's a free country, ain't it? Dept: Obama was the hardest president ever on press freedom. (Can you say Edward Snowden?). He prosecuted more whistle-blowers than anyone before. Yet I still hear Americans talk about how great it is to live in a “free country” and how Obama is a champion of that freedom. Yeah right.
 

The World Press Freedom Index ranks the U.S. as number 41 in the world. That's behind Tonga, Chile, Samoa, Slovakia, Jamaica, and many others. Next trip... TONGA!

-->Asking the right questions dept: When there was a spate of police murdering colored guys... especially unarmed colored guys... including a kid with a toy gun... I asked what would happen if there was some risk to this. What would happen if every time a cop shot an innocent colored guy... a cop someplace GOT shot? I didn't advocate such action, of course, but just wondered out loud what would happen.

Now we're beginning to see it. More than fifty cops were shot this year... many NOT involved in a gunfight. Maybe the war has begun-- with the other side finally fighting back.

I see two possibilities:

1. #policelivesmater and #blacklivesmatter will sit down over beer and newly legal marijuana to discuss their differences. Make a truce.

OR

2. The war intensifies until President Trump has to call in the National Guard to separate the sides.

I dunno. But both solutions seem pretty far from reality. We'll see. Things ARE getting interesting.

--> Keeping the Pressure on Dept: I want to thank reader George Metesky for suggesting a continuing Bring Back Mykel effort directed at Maximum Rock'n'Roll for censoring me.

As their revolving editrixes move on to commercial ventures, each blames her predecessors for my demise... as if they had no control over the business... and couldn't simply invite me back.

Send your comments to mrr@maximumrocknroll.com (or post on their facebook page) with the subject line: BRING BACK MYKEL! Let me know how they answer.

See you in hell.

-end-

NOTE: If you're interested in my travel blog, you can read it at mykelsdiary.blogspot.com.

I Was Wrong or Mykel's Election Postmortem

Postmortem (Second Version)

November 9, 2016

by Mykel Board

No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people. H. L. Mencken (disputed)

I was wrong. I predicted a Clinton landslide. I expected the American people... influenced by the press (57 of the top 100 newspapers supported Clinton, 48 gave no endorsement, 2 endorsed Trump)... scared by horror stories of a maniac at the atomic button... extermination of Mexicans... a gun in the hand of ever wacko... I expected them to run to the polls like scared rabbits, scratching out ballots for Clinton faster than you could say Michael Moore. I expected a planned election... engineered by that least democratic of political parties: The Democrats. (Leaked emails proved that the party leadership steered the party toward Clinton-- away from Sanders-- from the early primaries. The primaries themselves, were fixed by unelected superdelegates.) I even offered odds. Three to one on the election Ten to one on NY State. Lucky for me, no one took me up on it.

Now that the election is over, the scapegoat charges have already started flying. Third Party Candidates, The Electoral College, Trump Rigging... Democrats are looking everywhere... except in the mirror.

Here are some other interesting results from the election. From Yahoo:Voters in California, Massachusetts, and Nevada opted to fully legalize marijuana for recreational purposes. They join Alaska, Colorado, Oregon, Washington state, and the District of Columbia in legalizing pot.

Voters in Arkansas, Florida, and North Dakota also opted to legalize medical marijuana. And voters in Montana voted to ease their state’s rules on medical marijuana. No state voted against allowing pot for medicinal purposes.

Arizona, Colorado, Maine, and Washington state all considered raising their minimum wages to $12 an hour. And the proposal won in all four of these states.

At the same time, South Dakota voters overwhelmingly rejected a measure that would have reduced the minimum wage for those under the age of 18.

Candidates for prosecutor who campaigned on prison reform won in several states, from Florida to Texas. And a Democratic challenger defeated Maricopa County, Arizona, Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who billed himself as “America’s toughest sheriff” and got into trouble repeatedly for racial profiling. 
 
Meanwhile, initiatives to reduce prison sentences passed in California and Oklahoma. And New Mexico passed a constitutional amendment that dictates no one should be jailed because they can’t afford bail — a major reform to make sure people aren’t locked in jail just because they’re poor.

What happened? Weren't we beaten into believing Clinton was the progressive candidate and Trump was a fascist?

Here's how I see it:

I'm not sad Trump won. I didn't support him, but I'm glad for the first time since 1981, there won't be a Clinton or Bush among the top three positions in The U.S. (or running for one of them). More than that, about 50% HALF the eligible voters didn't vote. They were so disgusted by BOTH candidates that they felt there was just nothing to vote for. For one reason or another, Trump (sort of) inspired his followers. What kind of inspiration can come from a Clinton whose only talking point is: I Am Not Trump? I understand and sympathize with the non-voters.
 
If you remember, early polls said that Bernie Sanders would have beaten Trump. People wanted A CHANGE! Another Clinton is not a change. Minimum wage, marijuana, prison reform... these are changes. That's why the issues won and Clinton did not.

Like the Brexit folks, tired of their lives being controlled by the gnomes of Brussels, the Trump folks weren't keen on the expansion of corporatism begun by (the other) Clinton and carried forward by GW Bush and Obama. The TPP is DEAD! Proposed by Obama, called the gold standard of treaties by (the current) Clinton, supported by most Republicans in Congress, this treaty would have given away the US government's right to pollution controls, minimum wages, occupational safety and more, if it interfered with international business. Pressured by Sanders, Clinton agreed to “oppose” the treaty, but would have “changed her mind” within her first 3 months in office. Now, the treaty is dead. And an already-passed Clinton NAFTA treaty, is in trouble.

Clinton was the war candidate. The one who wanted to strengthen NATO... easy code for saber rattling. She wanted to increase tensions at the Russian border, setting up the same kinds of weapons John Kennedy almost started WW3 to get rid of. Americans were having none of it. It's nice to have international leaders be friends. You have fewer wars that way,

As long as we see Trump supporters as just redneck anti-immigrant hicks with no validity in their point of view, Trump will continue to win. As long as one party chooses hacks and the other a non-hack... the non-hack will win. I wish the Democrats would learn. I doubt they will. Some idiot will say... see America is right-wing and we have to move to the right to win. That idiot will be wrong.

This is not about right vs left. It's about arrogant keepers of the mainstream vs a shake-up. It's about people who make speeches to farmers and people paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to make speeches to bankers. It's about people buying and people being bought.

If the Democrats were smart, they would nominate someone like Elizabeth Warren next time... or maybe even more of an outsider who we don't know yet. The Democrats are not smart. No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the Democratic party.

Americans? H. L. Mencken... and I... were wrong. They're smarter than we thought.

--Supplemental Column

regular column posted at: mykelsblog.blogspot.com

For a video from the UK that expresses a similar idea see:
https://www.facebook.com/viralthread/videos/598130190359668/